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Saturday, 27 February 2010

COLLUSION FANZINE - 1982

It wasn't only Dundee based fanzines that were on sale locally in the 70's & 80's, you could also get others from around Scotland, and the occasional national one.

A good example of the latter, is this one called, Collusion, which I picked up in 1982.

It is a slightly different kind of fanzine, in that it was put together by professionals rather than local enthusiasts, but although all those who contributed to Collusion were well established music authorities already working as journalists, musicians, critics and authors, they did do this fanzine in their spare time without any financial backing.

You may be familiar with some of the names from the likes of NME, Face & Wire - Steve Beresford, David Toop, Lol Coxhill, Sue Steward, Simon Frith, Nick Kimberley and a few others.

The music covered in it is what we now call world music, but back then some of these music genres were just starting to become heard about. You may recall this was around the time the WOMAD organisation began.

The wide variety of music featured includes - African, Asian film music, Cajun, jazz, Japanese Enka, surf, 50's pop, reggae, gospel, and a few other bits & pieces.

There is also a top notch 4 page article written by fellow Taysider, Stuart Cosgrove, about the Wigan Casino and Northern Soul scene.

So Collusion was a great wee read. No idea how many were issued, this is the only one I have and I can't find much info on the net about it, but it is a good reminder of the kind of material that was on the go in those days before the internet.

The tricky bit was, trying to find any of the recordings in Dundee's record shops!!

5 comments:

This magazine passed me by !but buying records in Dundee , I remember in 1975 trying to buy a stooges album in chalmers and Joy and made to feel stupid as know one knew who they were , I had read about them in an Alice Cooper review and thought they sounded great! if I had been looking for Rush or other shit - no problem ! mike

So, you patronised the staff about not knowing about The Stooges, without having heard them yourself?You sound like the worse sort of record shop staff nerd that Nick Hornby so memorably described. Despite all the punk hype, most people hadn't heard The Stooges in 1975. That you had heard about them in a record review hardly makes you Nick Kent. The fact that yo're still dining out on this forty years later makes it even more pathetic.

This one passed me by as well, maybe a bit too high brow for me at the time! Can you put the Northern Soul article up, be interesting to read what Cosgrove wrote. He seems to think he knows it all and no doubt will say Northern Soul was invented in Perth. Wonder if he visited the Dundee allnighters or was he too scared, him being a Perth Pack or Young Team man or whatever he he he...